Squeak,
My electric company allows me to read the meter on the months that they don't come. I then send them the meter read and they take may word for it. I can either mail it in, Phone it in, or send it by computer.
The other option is to go solar like I have (check my web page) and supply most of the elctricity yourself
See if you can't do the reads yourself in the off months. Hopefully next year they will be better at estimating from this years data.

Happy Holidays to All!

- Brian